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Published: September 12th 2007
A long post, sorry if I tend to dribble on …oh and thanks to all those that have added messages or comments - keep them up and love to hear what is happening back home. If I can bore you with the mundanity of my life you guys can return the favour too :-)
Barb: no plans for Xmas yet, would love to have a white Christmas so might try to organize that (Sweden perhaps? see below)
Spent the weekend in London, all rather last minute but a friend I hadn’t seen in years was in London on holidays so I made the trip down so that we could catch up. Left Manchester straight from work and arrived in London pretty late and didn’t get to Hotel Vienelle until late (luckily the exact time that V was arriving home from work). Lucy was out raging so Vaughan and I went to the pub for a quick one before being kicked out at closing.
Saturday my friend Dom and I went to the Portobello markets and Notting Hill. Lots of cool little stalls selling the usual market fair and some great food! Got some food and had lunch in
the park (there was even a little sunshine).
Saturday night Vaughan, Lucy and I went to the 99 club for a comedy night. First act Zoe Lyons was my favourite followed by Australian Yianni Agisilaou who I’m sure was in an Aussie show like Heartbreak High but no hits when I googled him and Simon Evans who was the headline but I didn’t find overly funny. Still we had a good night but crashed the minute I returned to Hotel Vienelle.
Sunday more markets, a lovely breakfast in Covent Garden (served by an Aussie/Kiwi who clearly knew how to make a good coffee!), a walk along the Thames and some more browsing through markets, this time the Spitalfields markets where we had a nice quick lunch at Leon’s (see pic, very eclectic décor, like a cool Fast Eddy’s) and my first experience of a unisex toilet (very very weird!). Most excitingly I found a little stall that sells Little Creatures beer, just the pale ale but couldn’t resist buying a couple (even at £2 a pop) which I will save for a special occasion or if I get really homesick.
Left London late Sunday and arrived into
Manchester at 1am and back at work Monday morning with a gig Monday night and another gig Tuesday.
Monday night saw me at a gig for The Twilight Sad, Glaswegian rockers that I also saw in early July (first repeat gig of this trip but definitely not the last the way I’m going!). Different venue this time being upstairs at the Phoenix bar/club - the main redeeming features being plenty of places to sit and proper air con, in fact I was getting cold at one point (a nice change from the usual Academy venue which is stiflingly hot).
Now I hate to harp on about music, but Tuesday night was without doubt the most fun time I’ve ever had at a gig. The band in question, I’m From Barcelona, a very quirky band that includes up to 29 band members at any one time.
Despite the name, they are actually from the current home of the best indie pop, Sweden (think old skool Abba, Roxette, Ace of Base) and number up to 29 band members. - although there were only 13 on stage tonight! Lol
The band appeared on stage and let out heaps of
helium filled pink balloons, a couple of super large balloons and the lead singer with a pink inflatable lilo (which he later used to crowd surf on!).
See the pics, it was a truly amazing, crazy, zany, fun and ridiculous night - think Wiggles meets Polyphonic Spree. The band encouraged as much crowd participation and truly blurred the lines between performers and audience with sing a longs, confetti throwing, kazoo playing (yes some cool kids bought their own kazoos along), silly dancing and for the finale the band and the stage were swamped with kids from the audience.
After the band finished proper, a semi impromptu DJ set followed where we all danced around with the band until the mean venue staff turned on the lights to get rid of us all!
To say the least I had an amazing night and left the gig literally soaked in sweat.
Workwise, after a week of being very quiet, had a mega busy day Wednesday. We didn’t rule off end of month until the other day and then it was a mad scramble to process the last week and half’s transactions and get the billing and books balanced
for partner reports tomorrow - like EOM at Mallies but in the middle of the month, kinda weird!
Had planned a quiet few days but just found out about a cool gig/club night tomorrow (with awesome summer pop folkers The Magic Numbers appearing) so will be off to that, might try to check out some different forms of culture on the weekend, maybe a museum or gallery.
Oh and I hear Lisa K is pregnant again and there’s more ex Mallies babies in the pipeline - Peter Costello will be pleased! lol
End note: Last week I blogged about the Regina Spektor gig in Liverpool, just found out that Brianna covered one of Regina's more popular songs 'Fidelity' on Australian Idol on 29 August. Crap version but kinda cool that she at least chose a Regina song.
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Lisa K
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Pink balloons - how'd ya know
Jees Pete, from half way round the globe you hear the news and celebrate with the right balloon colour! Yep its a girl. I really hoped to break the Mallies curse of two of each sex, but it wasn't to be...think Nicole 2 girls, Paul 2 boys, Justin 2 girls and now me 2 girls - someone better hurry up and start populating with some boys!